curved, like a horse's; people said babies al-
ways cried if she smiled at them. Her face had
a kind of fascination for me; it was the very
color and shape of anger. There was a gleam
of something akin to insanity in her full, in-
tense eyes. She was formal in manner, and
made calls in rustling, steel-gray brocades and
a tall bonnet with bristling aigrettes.

Mrs. Cutter painted china so assiduously
that even her washbowls and pitchers, and her
husband's shaving-mug, were covered with
violets and lilies. Once when Cutter was ex-
hibiting some of his wife's china to a caller, he
dropped a piece. Mrs. Cutter put her hand-
kerchief to her lips as if she were going to faint
and said grandly: "Mr. Cutter, you have
broken all the Commandments -- spare the
finger-bowls!"

They quarreled from the moment Cutter
came into the house until they went to bed at
night, and their hired girls reported these
scenes to the town at large. Mrs. Cutter had
several times cut paragraphs about unfaithful
husbands out of the newspapers and mailed
them to Cutter in a disguised handwriting.
Cutter would come home at noon, find the
mutilated journal in the paper-rack, and tri-

[[241]]

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v?